


Road Trip

by torakowalski



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-18
Updated: 2005-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ray,” I sighed, throwing my pack in the back of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat, “Your flight is in forty hours, the drive to the airport is approximately twenty hours -- I hardly think you’re going to miss your flight for the few extra minutes I took checking our… my home was safe.”  I cursed myself for stumbling over the possessive pronoun, but luckily Ray was too wound-up to notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip

“Fraser!  Come on!”

I winced as Ray’s aggravated shouts were joined by a cacophony of bellows from the car horn.  He was probably beating his head against it again; I wished I could find a way to cure him of that habit.  It did neither his forehead nor the steering wheel any good.  

“Yes Ray, coming,” I muttered to myself, well aware that I was too far away for him to hear.  My father’s ghostly presence used to aggravate me by causing me to appear to be speaking to myself, but since he’d left, I found myself voluntarily talking to myself.

I finished checking that the dogs had sufficient food and water to last them until our neighbour, Andy, came to check on them as arranged, and closed the barn door behind me.  I picked up my pack from the ground, slung it over one shoulder and walked through the snow to reach the truck.

Ray was, as his shouts had made apparent, already inside.  He’d already claimed the driver’s seat, which came as no surprise. “Fraser, where the hell you been?  I’m gonna miss my flight.”

“Ray,” I sighed, throwing my pack in the back of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat, “Your flight is in forty hours, the drive to the airport is approximately twenty hours -- I hardly think you’re going to miss your flight for the few extra minutes I took checking our… my home was safe.”  I cursed myself for stumbling over the possessive pronoun, but luckily Ray was too wound-up to notice.

“Right, right, yeah,” he muttered, turning the key in the ignition, “Sorry.  Just don’t want anything to go wrong, you know? I’ve been kind of lookin’ forward to this.”

I smiled as the car glided forward easily, and didn’t point out the glaring understatement.  Ray had not merely been “looking forward” to his trip to Chicago… his trip home… to spend Christmas with his parents, he’d been bouncing around the cabin since mid-November when the trip was first proposed.  And he was my friend, so of course I was happy for him.  Or at the very least, I’d managed to crush my disappointment and jealousy down to a bare minimum, even if I hadn’t succeeded in pushing them aside completely.  

It was irrational of me, of course, to expect Ray to spend Christmas – a holiday I knew he very much enjoyed – in the middle of the Northwest Territories, with only myself and Diefenbaker for company.  I _hadn’t_ in all honestly expected him to spend Christmas with me here, but I had foolishly assumed he would be spending it with me somewhere.  But when the invitation had come from his parents he hadn’t once invited me to accompany him on his trip.  I told myself not to be so selfish; he hadn’t seen his  
parents since we set off on our Quest last March and he’d spent every second with me since then.  Perhaps he was simply bored of my company.

“Frase?”  Ray nudged my arm, which I wish he wouldn’t do while  
driving at 80 km/h, when he clearly needed both hands on the wheel,  
“You okay?  You’re kinda quiet.”

“I’m fine Ray,” I said, giving him my best bland smile.  He rolled  
his eyes but didn’t comment, just reached across and turned up the  
volume on the radio, singing along under his breath to <I>Santa  
Drives a Pickup</I>.  I smiled and jointed in at the  
refrain, thinking about Constable Turnbull, feeling mildly nostalgic  
for his frilly apron and bumbling manner and the way he looked so  
shocked each and every time I thanked him for his help.  
   
That set the pattern for our long drive down mainly empty roads.   
This year’s snow had been fairly heavy, but the roads were relatively  
ice-free, so Ray got to feed his desire to drive at top speed with  
little regard for such trivialities as speed limits.  Each time I  
rebuked him he laughed and asked, “What you gonna do?  Arrest  
me?”  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I would do just  
that, but then I remembered the look on Ray Vecchio’s face when I told  
him the same thing and kept my mouth shut.  

“So,” Ray said at length, jolting me out of my daze, “This Julie gonna have the full works?  Turkey and stuffing and all?”

“Um, yes Ray.  I imagine so.”  Ray’s question sounded as if  
he were forcing himself to make conversation to fill an uncomfortable  
silence and I was surprised.  A month or so into our Quest, he’d  
lost the need to do that, and we had spent many enjoyable days in  
relative silence.  

“What she look like?”

“Julie?  She… she looks fine.  She’s… sturdy.”  I  
groaned inwardly to find myself resorting to my father’s  
adjectives.  But really, I hadn’t seen Julie Frobisher in nearly  
four years.  The only reason I was spending Christmas with her and  
her father was that they had asked me, and seeing as Ray was going to  
Yellowknife anyway – flights out of Inuvik airport, though more  
conveniently located, were not entirely reliable at this time of year –  
I really had no excuse not to make the drive down.  

Ray snorted and looked at me over the top of his sunglasses, “Sturdy,”  
he muttered, shaking his head.  He was silent for a moment, then  
looked back at me.  “Sturdy mean attractive, Frase?”

“I… I suppose so.”  I said, embarrassed and surprised.

“You interested in her?”

I didn’t understand where this line of questioning was going or even  
why it had started, but I had long ago got into the habit of being  
honest with Ray – about most things at least.  “I suppose I was,  
once upon a time.”

His expression softens but he presses on, “But not anymore?”

“No, Ray.”

He smiled slightly, just a brief twitch of lips and fell silent.   
I watched his profile, illuminated by the sunlight streaming over his  
left shoulder, highlighting the golden lights in his hair and turning  
his stubble translucent, casting a golden aura around the diameter of  
his face, his partly opened lips, his straight nose, his high  
forehead.  There was time, near the beginning of our acquaintance  
when I had allowed myself to believe this man might have held romantic  
feelings for me, as I did for him, but if they had ever been real I no  
longer believed they existed.  He saw me as his friend – his best  
friend, I flattered myself – his conscience and his guide.  He  
didn’t see me as a potential lover.  

*  
We made it to Norman Wells in time for dinner, and I insisted we stop  
\-- even though Ray was all for pushing on, I knew he was beginning to  
tire.  Not that he would ever have acknowledged that.  

We had our meal in a small diner run by a waitress, who I would have  
called “charming” until I noticed how many of her coy smiles were  
directed in Ray’s direction.  I’m afraid I was rather short with  
her, but she didn’t appear to notice.  Ray did though, and shot me  
a confused look.  I shrugged – a move I had stolen from him when  
he was trying to avoid talking about something – and concentrated on my  
meal.

After dinner -- for which I left the waitress a rather excessive tip to  
make up for my earlier rudeness -- we made our way to the small motel  
where we had reservations and passed a comfortable night.

*

The next morning, not long after we had left Norman Wells, I noticed  
the beginnings of a light snow flurry, but the route was a well  
travelled one and Ray was, for all his love of flaunting regulations he  
didn’t agree with, a good driver, so I saw no reason to worry.

A mile out I was beginning to regret my decision.  The snow was  
getting heavier by the second, piling up in drifts on the windshield,  
so thick that the wipers were beginning to buckle.

Ray frowned and leaned forward, pulling his sunglasses off angrily and  
straining to see the road.  “Can’t see a fucking thing,” he  
muttered under his breath, “Fraser, you got any superpowers that’d let  
us drive blind?”

“Er, no, Ray, I’m afraid not.”  I was in fact feeling  
overwhelmingly useless, sitting impotently in the passenger seat,  
unable to do anything to help Ray.  I even felt unreasonably  
guilty about the weather.  “Perhaps we should go back to town?”

“Nah,” Ray was chewing on his bottom lip, a sure sign that he was  
anxious. “Don’t wanna risk trying to turn the car round blind.”

“If we can manage another mile or so my friend Quinn has a cabin just a  
little further along.  He’s unlikely to be there, but I’m sure he  
wouldn’t mind us using it.” I didn’t tell him that I’d already checked  
with Quinn in case of exactly this eventuality.  Ray scolded me  
enough for worrying as it was.  “No more than a mile and…  
Ray!  Look out!”

Instinctively, I reached across to pull on the steering wheel as bright  
headlamps suddenly appeared, racing toward us head on, but Ray knocked  
my hand away and spun the wheel in his hands, managing to veer out of  
the other vehicle’s path, but ploughing us head first into a thick bank  
of compressed snow at the edge of the road.  

The shock of the impact pushed my chest hard into the seatbelt I was  
wearing, winding me but nothing worse.  As I blinked through the  
temporary darkness, I heard Ray curse under his breath, “Fucking  
idiots!  Fucking… Fraser?  Fraser, God, you okay?”  

Warm, trembling hands were suddenly running over my torso, doing nothing to help me reclaim my breath.

“I’m fine, Ray.  Fine.  Just winded.”  I glanced up and  
found myself looking into worried, blue-grey eyes. “I’m fine,” I  
repeated softly.

Ray smiled at me, for a moment surprisingly shy and vulnerable, then he  
seemed to pull himself together and the wonderfully warm hands fell  
away, “Well of course you are,” he said gruffly, sitting back, “You  
being a super-Mountie and all.  The car though, she’s a different  
matter.”

I followed his eyes and had to agree.  There was no way we were  
getting the truck out of here by ourselves and I was loath to call a  
recovery truck in this weather.  

“Damn,” I allowed myself to say, earning another of Ray’s quicksilver smiles.  

“So how far to this cabin, again?”  He asked, leaning over the back of his chair to reach our packs.

I let myself watch the play of muscles revealed as his sweatshirt rucked up a little, “Definitely less than a mile.”

“And you know the way?”

“I believe so.  Thank you,” I added as I accepted my pack and  
began to pull on gloves and scarf and coat and hat, watching Ray do the  
same.  

“Right, let’s go.”  Ray pushed his door open and jumped out into  
the snow.  I followed, marvelling at the stoic way he was taking  
our forced trek and the fact his journey would almost certainly be  
delayed.  I knew the Quest had changed Ray in subtle ways, but I  
was never going to get over his new c’est la vie attitude.  

The journey to Quinn’s cabin was tiring and cold but not overly  
arduous.  We merely had to follow the main road for three quarters  
of a mile and then take the somewhat narrower path that led to the  
cabin.  We were both properly attired and had experienced far  
greater hardships on our Quest and so were in no real danger, a fact  
for which I was profoundly grateful, as I doubted I would have been  
capable of convincing Ray to wait out the storm in the car – one thing  
he hadn’t learned was patience.

*

“Hey!  This place isn’t bad at all,” Ray exclaimed as he began  
shedding layers just inside Quinn’s cabin.  “Could do with a bit  
of a fire,”

“Yes, Ray.  I’ll take care of that in just a moment.”

He frowned at me, “Hey, I wasn’t askin’; I was offerin’.  You don’t gotta do everything for me all the time, you know.”

I did know; it was just hard sometimes to separate city-Ray from the man I now knew.  

“I’ll check for food,” I said, walking into the kitchenette and leaving Ray to stoke the fire.  

“Hey, Frase?”  Ray’s voice floated across the cabin to me, “There’s only one bed.”

“Well yes Ray, Quinn is only one man.”  I said innocently, staring  
hard at the coffee pot I had unearthed.  Ray and I had shared body  
heat on more than one occasion during our search for Franklin, but  
since we returned to my cabin we had been carefully remaining in our  
separate beds, even on the coldest night.  

By the time I returned to the main portion of the cabin, carrying a mug  
of steaming coffee in each hand, Ray had removed his wet clothing and  
was now sprawled on the bed in nothing but his boxers and a worn, black  
t-shirt.  I drew a deep breath and prayed I would get through this  
night without completely embarrassing myself or – as Ray would put it –  
getting myself kicked in the head.  

Ray accepted the coffee gratefully, wrapping his hands around the mug,  
wincing at the heat, but making no move to take his obviously cold  
hands away from it.

I perched myself on the very edge of the bed and buried my nose in the  
steam emanating from the mug, trying to not look at Ray’s easy,  
incongruously attractive sprawl.  

“So,” Ray said at length, “This is cosy.” His voice was low and when I  
looked up he was lying with his eyes closed and the mug of half drunk  
coffee resting easily on his stomach.  His bare legs were cast  
into a burnished orange light from the fire he had got lit while I was  
in the kitchen and his toes were pink from the heat of it.  

“Yes,” I agreed heartily, “There are much worse ways to spend a storm.”

“Ask you something?”

“Of course,”

He placed his mug on the floor by the bend and rolled over onto his  
side so he could look me in the eye.  “You believe in fate?”

The intensity of his eyes was startling and I felt myself flushing. “I’ve never been sure,” I answered honestly.

He smiled slightly crookedly and nodded, “Me either.  Though I’m thinking I maybe believe in it now.”

“How so?”

His eyes dropped to the counterpane and I could tell he was nervous --  
but Ray was no coward, and when he looked up at me his expression was  
full of fierce conviction.  “Cos it’s the day before Christmas  
Eve, and I’m here in the middle of a snow storm with you when I should  
be half way to Chicago.  And here’s where I wanna be.”

I licked my lips instinctively and felt my breathing catch when his eyes followed the movement. “Ray?”

“Shut up, Frase,” he whispered huskily, surging across the bed and  
pressing his rough palm to my suddenly burning cheek.  His lips  
were chapped and warm and for once I didn’t think.  Didn’t  
question.  I just brought a hand up to the back of his neck and  
returned the kiss.  

Ray moaned into my mouth and I found myself being pressed down into the  
blankets, Ray’s hot, hard body over mine, crushing me in the most  
delicious way I could imagine.  

I let my hands travel down the long expanse of back, first over the  
soft material of his t-shirt then, when I could work up the courage,  
along his bare, slightly sweat-slick skin.  He hissed into my  
mouth and bit down on my lower lip.  It hurt and I wouldn’t have  
exchanged the feeling for anything.  

“Frase?” Ray pulled his mouth away from mine in a series of tiny, nibbling kisses, “You want this?”

His eyes were dark, his cheeks flushed, and his breathing heavy.

“Yes, Ray,” I sighed against his mouth, “yes please.”

*

A long time later Ray shifted in my arms, his damp, bare skin eliciting  
electrical sparks where it brushed over my thoroughly sated, equally  
nude, body.  

“I’m gonna miss my flight, aren’t I?”  he asked softly, his words  
tickling my skin where his mouth was pressed into the curve of my neck.

“I’m afraid it does look likely,” I admitted, rubbing a hand down his back

“I’ll have to call mum; she’ll be pretty disappointed.  I guess  
I’ll just hang out in Yellowknife and catch a flight down after  
Christmas.”

“Don’t be silly, Ray, you’ll spend Christmas with me at the Frobishers’”

“Don’t wanna gatecrash your Christmas.”  He kissed my shoulder  
before I could respond, and I felt the shape of his smile.  “You  
sure you don’t mind?”

I tightened my arms.  My grip on him was the only thing that gave  
me courage.  “Of course not.  It will be a much more  
enjoyable holiday with you there.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He lapsed into silence again and I lay still, feeling the rise and fall  
of his chest, the beat of his chest.  Finally, he asked, “So, er,  
if you’ll have a better time with me there, and I know I’ll have a  
better time with <I>you</I> there, why were we going to be  
spending the holidays apart?”

It was a very good question.  One I didn’t really have an answer  
for.  “Well, your -- er -- your mother wanted to see you Ray and…”

“Frase you’re the one who talked me into going,”

Yes, that was true.  But that had been when I’d believed I’d be going too.  I felt myself blush, “Well yes…”

“Cos Frase from where I’m standing that was not your best plan ever, I  
mean it’s not like you could come down to Chicago with me.”

“I – er -- I couldn’t?”

Ray pushed himself up and looked down at me, “Well ‘course not.   
You’d of been miserable.  This is your first Christmas in the  
frozen wilderness for years, I wasn’t about to ask you to miss out on  
that.”

I stared at him, surprised and a little mortified at my own misreading  
of the situation.  Unbidden a laugh bubbled up in my throat.

Ray frowned at me in confusion.  “What?  What’s funny?   
I know it ain’t really called the wilderness, Frase, if this is you  
mocking the stupid yank, but…”

“No.  No Ray,” I assured him, getting myself under control.  “I’m sorry.  I was just taken by the irony.”

“Irony?”

“I don’t care where I spend Christmas, Ray,” I said softly, “As long as it’s with you.”

He blinked at me speechlessly.  His lips worked but no sound came  
out.  For a moment I was afraid.  Despite what we’d just done  
we hadn’t really said anything; I’d taken a leap here and I didn’t  
think I could stand it if he turned away from me in disgust.  

Then he smiled, a blinding smile that lit his eyes, and I forced myself  
to relax.  This was Ray, I had to remember to trust that.   
Trust him.

He sank back down against my chest and tucked his hands under my body,  
“Idiot,” he murmured into my skin.  “Hey, you reckon they’ve got a  
phone in that town we just passed through?”

“I imagine so.”

“So I can phone mum and you can phone Julie and we can spend Christmas here?  Right?”

I allowed myself to smile, knowing he couldn’t see me.  “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”


End file.
